A Bird soared to victory in yesterday’s 141st Belmont Stakes, but it wasn’t the Bird everyone expected.
In yet another upset that has become commonplace in the mile-and-a-half “Test of the Champion,” 11-1 shot Summer Bird came from the clouds in deep stretch under Kent Desormeaux to blow by Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird, the 6-5 favorite, and win the Belmont by 23⁄4 lengths before an announced crowd of 52,861.
“The colt dragged me all around the racetrack,” Desormeaux said. “I had an armchair ride, trapped with nowhere to go, until I found some room. I was just hoping that when I got a chance to present this colt, he would get a chance to run. He exploded in the last 500 yards.”
Trained by Louisianan Tim Ice, who celebrated his 35th birthday yesterday, and bred and owned by the husband-wife team of Drs. Kalarikkai and Vilasini Devi Jayaraman, Summer Bird is, like Mine That Bird, a son of 2004 Belmont winner Birdstone, who toppled Smarty Jones’ Triple Crown bid. The late-blooming chestnut colt had never won a stakes before, and was making just his fifth start after finishing third in the Arkansas Derby and sixth in the Run for the Roses.
“If my career goes nowhere from here, I’ve got a Belmont win, and they can’t take it away from me,” said Ice, a former assistant trainer for Desormeaux’s brother, Keith.
Mine That Bird’s jockey, Calvin Borel, was denied his own personal Triple Crown after he won the Derby and then took the Preakness on the filly Rachel Alexandra. All through the week, Borel guaranteed victory, to which Desormeaux replied: “I think Calvin is naive about the situation he’s in. I know what he’s feeling, [but] a mile-and-a-half is a lot longer than you think.”
The victory, his first in the Belmont, was sweet vindication for Desormeaux, who was twice denied the Triple Crown. In 1998, his colt, Real Quiet, was four lengths in front with a furlong to run but was nailed in the final jump by Victory Gallop to lose by a nose at 4-5. Last year, coming off easy scores in the Derby and Preakness, Desormeaux was ridiculed for easing 1-5 favorite Big Brown on the far turn.
“I left the house this morning with a will to win this race,” said Desormeaux, “because it means beauty, class and elegance.”
Summer Bird’s victory wasn’t the only surprise in this year’s Belmont. Dunkirk, known for his late kick, went to the early lead for the first time under John Velazquez over a track that had been favoring speed all day. Bet down to 9-2 after finishing 11th in the Derby, Dunkirk was tracked by Miner’s Escape, with the highly touted Charitable Man, dead on the board at 9-2, farther back than expected in fourth off a solid pace (:23.41, :47.13).
Mine That Bird, as usual, was last of 10 in the early going, but he began to advance down the backside, then made a sudden, explosive — and, as it turned out, premature — move on the far turn, circling past horses to poke his head in front at the top of the stretch.
“Calvin said he was kind of fighting him down the backside,” trainer Chip Woolley Jr. said. “Calvin might have set him down a touch early, but that was a judgment call. I thought we were in good shape.”
“I thought we was home free,” said Borel. “He ran his heart out.”
Dunkirk dug in to Mine That Bird’s inside, with Charitable Man between them, and those three battled down the lane, pulling clear of the field. It looked like a three-horse race to the wire until Summer Bird came flying outside to pass them all. A resurgent Dunkirk came again to out-photo Mine That Bird for second by a neck.
Alan Garcia, who finished fourth on Charitable Man, claimed foul against Dunkirk for interference in the stretch run. The stewards rejected Garcia’s complaint.
With a final time of 2:27.54, Summer Bird paid $25.80, topping a $121
exacta and $295 trifecta. The superfecta returned $852. More than $1.6 million was poured into the Pick 6 yesterday, which paid $969,345 to one lucky ticket-holder.